Key Holding Services

When the alarm is activated, one of these Key Holders is alerted by the monitoring station and needs to attend your property.

If a commercial or domestic client based in Southend or Essex has a monitored systemand that system is maintained by us, then Blake Fire & Security Systems can provide a Key Holding Service. This means we are the first (or second) name on the list of people to be called in the case of any alarm activations.

You don't need professional key holder services, you could use a relative or family friend. However, many of our customers find it more convenient to use our 24 /7 service.

What does Blake's Key Holding Service cover?

We will only attend site as Key Holders for alarm activations.

One of our engineers attends your property when the alarm is activated. This means if you're not in when your alarm goes off, you know an engineer is on their way to make sure your home is OK.

As Key Holders we are normally first on site and will attempt to fix the fault there and then depending on whether we have the correct replacement parts on board. If this is not the case, the system will be left secure until we can return to site with the required parts.

We are available for this service 24/7 with a standard 4 hour response time but all our engineers with try to attend in less than 2 hours - if not sooner depending on location.

This service is supplied as a one-time call out fee that will be charged per visit, or through an annual fee which will cover any callouts for that year. Unfortunately if the call out is due to user error and not a genuine activation, a charge will still be made for our attendance. Scroll down to read more about our two payment Options below.

Another part of the service is that we keep a copy of the keys to your site, so we can gain access to site as soon as possible. The keys are kept in a secure location and have to be signed out and signed back in during uses.

We can also be temporary Key Holders, for example, if a client goes on holiday. Once they are back it will return to their normal Key Holder list.

All our engineers must hold an SIA Licence for key holding before they can attend any callouts. For more information on the SIA licence please click here.

If we do get called to site and there has been a break in, the site will be made secure before leaving. If we can’t personally do this ourselves, we will arrange other services that can.

To find out more about our Key Holding Services, call us on 01702 447800 or click the red button below

Key Holding Service Prices

Option I - Pay As You Go - Key Holder / Engineer Response

The Cost of this service is as per our normal ‘Schedule of Rates’ which are:

Normal working hours: Monday to Friday 08:00 - 16:30

£80.00 - Minimum callout charge, includes first hour*

£40.00 - Rate per hour thereafter*

Outside normal working hours

£140.00 - Minimum callout charge, includes first hour*

£80.00 - Rate per hour thereafter*

London - Inside congestion charge zone

Normal working hours: Monday to Friday 08:00 - 16:30

£130.00 - Minimum callout charge, includes first hour*

£50.00 - Rate per hour thereafter*

Outside normal working hours

£195.00 - Minimum callout charge, includes first hour*

£100.00 - Rate per hour thereafter*

Guaranteed response time of 4 hours

The above costs are subject to V.A.T

Plant, materials and expenses charged at Cost Plus 20%

*Time charged includes travel and time onsite

Option II

One Off Annual Fee - Key Holder / Engineer Response

An engineer will attend any activation of the intruder alarm system when the system is set and the site is secure*

The Cost of this service is a one off payment of :

£600.00 + V.A.T. per annum

*This Option ll does not include activations caused by ‘User Error’

e.g.

Leaving a window or door open when setting the system

Not setting the system correctly and leaving the site for the “Alarm Company Key Holder” to rectify the problem

Not taking due care to reduce false alarms such as hanging mobiles near heaters which is a common cause of alarm activations especially over the Christmas period

In these cases our normal ‘Schedule of Rates’ will apply as Option 1

Beat the Burglar

Many people leave their homes vulnerable to burglars. Thankfully there are a number of simple, common sense things to put in place to keep the burglars OUT!

Important Information

Please note:

If this quotation is acceptable, we would require two sets of keys and / or fobs to enter the building, Code numbers will be required to open coded locks.

If further keys are required to open other doors not on the entry route, we would require these keys to be kept on site in an accessible position for our engineer or in a key safe box, to enable us to move around the building if required

The above service is only available to Clients whose systems we maintain and monitor.

Within Option I the labour cost is calculated from the time the “on call engineer” leaves our Office or his home. All engineers live in the Southend Borough area so you could assume that the travelling time would not be more than 60 mins each way.

In both Options, materials used will also be chargeable.

For Health and Safety reasons, on a single activation an engineer will not be dispatched. However if multiple activations occur it will be at the manager's/keyholder's discretion whether attendance is necessary (this is called an unconfirmed activation) and could be reasonably assumed to be a false alarm. A double activation (this is called an confirmed activation) could be reasonably assumed that a genuine intrusion has occurred and an engineer will be dispatched immediately. In these confirmed cases we will generally dispatch two engineers unless we can be sure the Police are also on site.

If a genuine intrusion has occurred these calls will be chargeable as the time spent on these visits would be longer than expected on a call to repair a fault and it is assumed the cost of those visits could be reclaimed under an insurance policy.

When attending site, our engineer will endeavour to rectify the problem or carry out a temporary fix of the problem for a recall to take place at a more opportune time (normal working hours). In most cases these return visits will be chargeable

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